1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a technique for managing an image forming apparatus such as a printer, a scanner, a facsimile machine, or a copying machine.
2. Description of the Related Art
In an image forming apparatus, if a user executes a job such as print or copy, a job history containing a user name or a used amount of the job is recorded. The management apparatus that manages the image forming apparatus collects and stores the job history from the image forming apparatus with polling processing.
Recently, energy saving has been advanced in offices and, if a job is being executed or there is no access from the management apparatus for a predetermined time or more, the state of an image forming apparatus is shifted to a power saving state for suppressing power consumption, such as a sleep state, in general image forming apparatuses.
Further, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2008-015799 discusses a technique for managing whether a device as a management target is in a sleep state by a management apparatus, and preventing the device from being restored from the sleep state by an access from the management apparatus.
In general, when collecting history information such as a job history from the image forming apparatus with polling processing of the management apparatus, if the image forming apparatus is in the sleep state, the sleep state is cancelled. Therefore, if the image forming apparatus is in the sleep state, it is preferably to be controlled so that the management apparatus does not acquire history information in the sleep state but acquires history information in a state other than the sleep state.
However, when executing the polling processing of the management apparatus with a schedule of one time a day, if the image forming apparatus is in the sleep state at the polling timing, the management apparatus cannot collect the history information.
When the user of the image forming apparatus does not instruct to execute the job just before the polling timing or when the sleep state of the image forming apparatus continues thereafter, the management apparatus cannot collect the history information.
In the management apparatus, it is required to monitor a using situation of the user of the image forming apparatus in real time. Therefore, with an operation without acquiring the history information when the image forming apparatus is in the sleep state, the real-time property is lost in collecting the history information of the management apparatus.